Editing Plutarch (section)

==Philosophy==
{{quote box|bgcolor=#c6dbf7|width=30em
|"The [[soul]], being eternal, after [[death]] is like a caged bird that has been released. If it has been a long time in the body, and has become tame by many affairs and long habit, the soul will immediately take another body and once again become involved in the troubles of the world. The worst thing about old age is that the soul's memory of the other world grows dim, while at the same time its attachment to things of this world becomes so strong that the soul tends to retain the form that it had in the body. But that soul which remains only a short time within a body, until liberated by the higher powers, quickly recovers its fire and goes on to higher things."
|Plutarch ("The Consolation", ''Moralia'')
}}
Plutarch was a [[Middle Platonism|Platonist]], but was open to the influence of the [[Peripatetics]], and in some details even to [[Stoicism]] despite his criticism of their principles.{{sfn|Zeller|1931}} He rejected only [[Epicureanism]] absolutely.{{sfn|Zeller|1931}} He attached little importance to theoretical questions and doubted the possibility of ever solving them.{{sfn|Zeller|1931}} He was more interested in moral and religious questions.{{sfn|Zeller|1931}}

In opposition to Stoic materialism and Epicurean atheism he cherished a pure idea of [[God]] that was more in accordance with [[Plato]].{{sfn|Zeller|1931}} He adopted a second principle (''[[Dyad (Greek philosophy)|Dyad]]'') in order to explain the phenomenal world.{{sfn|Zeller|1931}} This principle he sought, however, not in any indeterminate matter but in the evil [[Anima mundi|world-soul]] which has from the beginning been bound up with matter, but in the creation was filled with reason and arranged by it.{{sfn|Zeller|1931}} Thus it was transformed into the divine soul of the world, but continued to operate as the source of all evil.{{sfn|Zeller|1931}} He elevated God above the finite world, and thus [[Daemon (mythology)|daemons]] became for him agents of God's influence on the world. He strongly defends freedom of the will, and the immortality of the soul.{{sfn|Zeller|1931}}

Platonic-Peripatetic [[ethics]] were upheld by Plutarch against the opposing theories of the Stoics and Epicureans.{{sfn|Zeller|1931}} The most characteristic feature of Plutarch's ethics is its close connection with religion.{{sfn|Zeller|1931}} However pure Plutarch's idea of God is, and however vivid his description of the vice and corruption which superstition causes, his warm religious feelings and his distrust of human powers of knowledge led him to believe that God comes to our aid by direct revelations, which we perceive the more clearly the more completely that we refrain in "enthusiasm" from all action; this made it possible for him to justify popular belief in [[divination]] in the way which had long been usual among the Stoics.{{sfn|Zeller|1931}}

His attitude to popular religion was similar. The gods of different peoples are merely different names for one and the same divine Being and the powers that serve it.{{sfn|Zeller|1931}} The [[Greek mythology|myths]] contain philosophical truths which can be interpreted allegorically.{{sfn|Zeller|1931}} Thus, Plutarch sought to combine the philosophical and religious conception of things and to remain as close as possible to tradition.{{sfn|Zeller|1931}} Plutarch was the teacher of [[Favorinus]].<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Richter |first1=Daniel S. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bZ47DwAAQBAJ |title=The Oxford Handbook of the Second Sophistic |last2=Johnson |first2=William Allen |date=2017 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-983747-2 |page=552 |language=en}}</ref>

Plutarch was a [[vegetarian]], although how long and how strictly he adhered to this diet is unclear.<ref name="newmyer">{{cite journal |last=Newmyer |first=Stephen |date=1992 |title=Plutarch on Justice Toward Animals: Ancient Insights on a Modern Debate |url=https://journals.co.za/content/scholia/1/1/EJC128293 |journal=Scholia: Studies in Classical Antiquity |volume=1 |issue=1 |pages=38–54 |access-date=5 September 2020}}</ref> He wrote about the [[ethics of meat-eating]] in two discourses in ''Moralia''.<ref>{{cite book |last=Plutarch |title=Moralia |url=https://www.loebclassics.com/view/plutarch-eating_flesh/1957/pb_LCL406.539.xml |chapter=On the Eating of Flesh}}</ref>